DIE in the Sky?

Did the last decade's frenzy over Diversity, Inclusion, and Equity help cause the Washington airliner crash, as the President suggested?

New York Times, April 23, 2022

It’s a fool’s errand for a nonexpert like myself or Donald Trump to try to guess in the first 24 hours the causes of the Washington DC collision between a helicopter and an American Airlines jetliner that has killed over 60 people. After all, we are talking about a sample size of one.

This was, fortunately, the first multiple fatality crash of an American airline passenger plane airliner since 2009.

One cause of the crash was no doubt because jets and helicopters are allowed to come quite close to each other over the Potomac River next to the Reagan National Airport just outside DC. If everyone executes their job perfectly, then they shouldn’t collide. But this time, tragically, someone had blundered, evidently.

My guess is that we will soon witness a turf war between the Very Important People who frequently fly into Reagan on commercial flights (a lot of Congresspersons and the like — one reason America has such a good airliner safety record over the last 15 years is because Congressmen fly a lot and take their own safety seriously) versus the Very Very Important people who fly around the DC metro area on helicopters over who gets privileged in this busy zone.

OK, from three seconds ago:

Air traffic keeps going up, not to mention the increasing number of drones, so who is prioritized to fly where is going to become an increasing question of contention. (The good news is that artificial intelligence ought to be be able to reduce the danger eventually.)

Still, it’s hard not to wonder whether the recent dozen-year-long national frenzy over Diversity, Inclusion, and Equity help cause DIE in the Sky, as the President suggested?

Before I review that question, I’ll put in the paywall.